I bitch and bitch about Game of Thrones' tell-don't-show policy, but when this show shuts the fuck up, cuts the shit of having its characters talk about interesting things that are happening elsewhere or in the past or in the future instead of actually portraying those things, and gives us real action to sink our teeth into, it all seems worth it. At least, that was the case on last night's episode, which featured the most gorgeous display of carnage (involving green wildfire that Tyrion procured to fend off Stannis Baratheon's attack on King's Landing) I've ever seen on television.

This nicely complemented the more brutal hand-to-hand combat that featured prominently in the episode. We saw death by rock, an arrow through an eye and decapitation. The scenes from inside the gates, featuring Cersei going slowly mad and getting quickly drunk, in turn, complemented the battle overall. It was a delicately arranged episode about war, elegant without coming off as pretentious, thoughtful without skimping on the action. In sum, this episode lived up to the show's frequently undelivered potential, much like the penultimate episode of its first season (the one in which Ned Stark was executed). It's moments like these that make this show worthy of the patience it demands.

There wasn't really any sex this time around, so Dinklage wins by default. His character, after all, did arrange the wildfire and when leading the attack, had some fantastic lines like: "We'll come up from behind them and fuck them in their asses," and, "Those are brave men knocking at our door. Let's go kill them." But really, the whole fucking show won so hard this week. If we get dragons next week, I may vow to never say anything bad about this show again.